I don’t want to argue against the correctness of the sentence in English (I think you’re correct with that). I’m just uncomfortable by the conflation of two meanings. This makes:
“He spent his last penny”
technically the same as
“He is worth nothing”
So a rich person is “worthy”, which also means they are good, have achieved good things, and we are happy they exist. A poor person is “unworthy” and we can throw them away like garbage. That conflation is a problem to me.
I’m from a primarily English speaking place and you’re absolutely right. The phrase is completely bizarre. Like we could talk about assets, but we equate it to the person, and it’s a phrase that comes from the upper echelons of the capitalist ruling class and now everyone uses it. Like we’ve all just accepted the reality that our society doesn’t care about people unless they can pay.
Is it not considered worth or net worth for you?
I don’t want to argue against the correctness of the sentence in English (I think you’re correct with that). I’m just uncomfortable by the conflation of two meanings. This makes:
“He spent his last penny” technically the same as “He is worth nothing”
So a rich person is “worthy”, which also means they are good, have achieved good things, and we are happy they exist. A poor person is “unworthy” and we can throw them away like garbage. That conflation is a problem to me.
I’m from a primarily English speaking place and you’re absolutely right. The phrase is completely bizarre. Like we could talk about assets, but we equate it to the person, and it’s a phrase that comes from the upper echelons of the capitalist ruling class and now everyone uses it. Like we’ve all just accepted the reality that our society doesn’t care about people unless they can pay.
Worth and worthy are very different words though.